Work first as a European model? Evidence from Germany and the Netherlands

Work First has emerged as the dominant active labour market policy strategy in Anglo-Saxon countries. In this article, we analyse recent labour market policy developments in Germany and the Netherlands. On the basis of general policy developments and four specific indicators (active labour market budgets, unemployment benefit systems, the definition of suitable work and the use of sanctions), we find supporting evidence for the hypothesis that Work First is gaining popularity in both Germany and the Netherlands. In Germany we find Work First at an early stage in terms of rules, and in the Netherlands we identify numerous experiments that are already under way in practice with respect to Work First variants.